Harlem’s “rebel mindstate” that shaped A$AP Rocky
A$AP Rocky moved around a lot as a kid, but his true home was always Harlem.
He was born there in 1988, but, around the age of eight, he moved to Pennsylvania and spent a few years there. He also lived in the Bronx for a spell, and North Carolina, too. He had quite an unstable childhood spent moving around a lot, especially after his dad went to jail for drug-dealing when Rocky was 12.
But Rocky often found himself back in Harlem, and the Upper Manhattan neighbourhood shaped the young man profoundly. As he put it during a 2012 conversation with The Guardian, people from Harlem are “grungy.” This is a characteristic in him, too.
Arguing that Harlem has “always had its culture,” Rocky spoke of both positive and negative features of the neighbourhood. While in the ’90s the area was known for its hardcore hip-hop, in the ’80s it had an association with the crack epidemic and before that, in the ’70s, it had a reputation for pimping.
While those latter features are hardly the most positive characteristics for a neighbourhood to have, they do nonetheless imbue a place with a distinct feel. As Rocky put it, “We have a rebel mindstate in Harlem.”
Rocky suggested that it’s “not that easy these days” to be rebellious in nature, as there are strict “penalties and consequences” facing people who go against the grain. But growing up in Harlem means dealing with “consequences and penalties since day one.”
In this 2012 Guardian interview, Rocky credited Harlem with imbuing him with his “rebel mindstate” and with hardening his resolve in the face of “consequences and penalties.” But in a separate conversation with Interview earlier that same year, the then up-and-coming rapper also spoke about how the area shaped his fashion taste.
Claiming that he had been “into fashion since birth,” Rocky noted that he grew up in the ’hood and that “everybody in the ’hood wants to compensate for being in poverty.” A way to do that is through style. They want to “look good to keep themselves up.”
“That’s been embedded in me,” Rocky said, which proved, ultimately, to be true. As well as being a world-famous rapper representing New York today, he is a bona fide style icon, too. In every respect, Harlem shaped the man he became.